On a Friday, Ryan, Francisco, Aapo, Marcel, Vera, Siobhan, Jordan, and I booked hostel rooms at Kimchee Guesthouse in Hongdae and took the subway to Seoul. The subway ride from SinChang to Seoul is about 2hrs and 30 minutes, so basically I slept for most of it. The hostel was awesome though! I mean sure it was a little sketchy at first because it was located down a couple alleys, but the hostel itself was pretty nice.
It has come to my attention that not everyone knows what a hostel is! Let me enlighten y'all~ A hostel is different than a hotel in the sense that it mainly focuses on the traveler: the backpacker that doesn't need to pay a fortune for a bunch of useless services. Hostels usually have kitchens and lobby areas with dishes that hostel guests wash themselves after using, and usually if you stay in a hostel you want to meet other travelers. In a hotel you're not likely to interact with any other guests, but if you book a dorm room in a hostel, most likely you'll have strangers booked in the same room. In Hongdae we had one extra guest in our 6-Bed Mixed Dorm room. We nick named him Sweden. You'll hear more about him in a bit~ But yes my point is there actually is something called a hostel. We booked the rooms for two nights so it was about 26,000 won each, which really isn't too bad considering.
So we checked in and got changed. It was one of those rare occasions where I wore a dress and heels. Then we went out to meet the rest of our Global Village foreigners, but not after stopping at.....Taco Bell. How is it that Taco Bell in Korea tastes a million times better than American Taco Bell? I think it was because I was starving and had already had a can of beer by that point.
Oh yes that reminds me, another note on drinking. You can drink basically anywhere in Korea. Our favorite thing to do? Go to Ministop first. Ministop is a chain of convenient stores in Korea, and Soju is ridiculously cheap. One bottle, about the size of a bottle of pop, is 1,400 won which is roughly $1.30. And Soju is a very sneaky alcohol, my friends. You've got to watch that stuff. It tastes only a little stronger than water and takes a while to set in. So you think you're doing fine and then BAM you're drunk. Sigh. But moving on!
Taco Bell was good, but then we moved on to a bar. I forget which bar it was though.... But it was crowded and I wasn't a fan. Then had decently priced alcohol though, so we got a good buzz going. Then we moved on to a club. By this point we were all feeling it but having a lot of fun. I love the random mix of music at Korean clubs. It isn't all top 40 or club music. They played Mr. Brightside at one point which made everyone happy. And they played Super Magic by Supreme Team!!! I love that song even though it's so old.
There was hookah later too. I love hookah so much~ Also something amazing happened after hookah, but that's my little secret. Anyway we went back to the hostel, but we were kind of worried that we were disturbing that hostel mate I was talking about earlier. The beds were more comfortable than anything I've slept on in the past year, so I was out in no time.
Next morning I went with Aapo (our friend from Finland) and Marcel (really nice guy from LA) to search for breakfast. I ended up with some coffee and a peach. Fruit in Korea is basically impossible to find. It's super expensive too. So when you get offered fruit, you take the fruit. Then I went back and started getting ready for the day with Ryan and Francisco. Then all of the remaining peeps and I went exploring a bit. We went to Coex Aquarium. I think the Aquarium in Gatlinburg, Tennessee is better, but it was still beautiful~
So yeah Coex was great. Then we went to Namsan Tower!!
Namsan Tower is my personal symbol of accomplishment. Back in the States, for year Namsan Tower represented my goal of traveling in a way. I knew of it. I wanted to go. And if I went then I will have accomplished my goal of leaving the country and traveling. Well I finally went. And it was stressful and I'm basically done with that tower but goal accomplished!
We took two taxis to "Seoul Tower." But when my taxi, containing me, Francisco, and Vera, arrived Ryan, Siobhan, and Jordan were nowhere to be found. So we hesitantly started walking towards the tower. Turns out the taxi couldn't take us to the actual tower, so we had to climb the freaking mountain. I have never seen so many stairs in my life. It took forever! FINALLY we made it up the damn mountain. Then we climbed a hill. Then we were finally there, so we started looking for the others after buying our tickets.
For anyone who doesn't know what Namsan Tower is famous for, I'll tell you~ From the top of the tower there is a 360 degree view of Seoul. We went at night, and it was amazing. All the hard work I've done so far was completely worth it. There were so many lights. Oh! But before we got to the top, by some miracle we found the others! They had been dropped off on the other side of the mountain. But they heard Vera call out their names and then they saw us standing on the platform like thing that we were using to look for them. It was cool~
The pictures don't do it justice. Namsan is also famous for the locks. There are hundreds of locks with writing on them locked onto fences. They're symbols of love. Needless to say, Namsan Tower is a big lovers' spot. But it was beautiful and worth it.
Sooo then we split up to go back down the mountain. Since it was me, Francisco, and Ryan, of course we got lost. When it's just us three, craziness is bound to happen. We barely made it down the mountain, into a taxi, and on the subway before the subway closed at midnight.
Back at the hostel, we got ready for another night of drinking (because I mean, that's what Hongdae is famous for honestly...), but this time we had an extra member: our hostel mate, Sweden! So we finally got to meet him that morning. His name was Samuel, and he was from Sweden of course. Well that night he had been drinking since 7pm. We didn't start drinking until 1am. Oh that's another thing! Clubs and bars in Korea are open until 5am instead of 2am!! So anyway, we all went out, bought two bottles of soju and a jug of beer to drink on the way. I'm not even going to disclose the amount of alcohol consumed that night. Just know that it was a lot... We came back to the hostel as the sun was rising. There we found Sweden again. He was laying in his underwear in front of someone else's door surrounded by vomit. So Francisco and I helped him up and took him to bed. Ryan took care of him for a bit after that too because the poor guy didn't sound too good....
Next morning we were all pretty much still drunk, but we started our adventure again anyway. We walked around a lot but I can't remember where all we went.... Anyway it was fun. And exhausting. But mostly fun.
Cheers,
Sam~
